On April 24, the OSCE Office hosted a regular meeting of the Pridnestrovian and Moldovan experts on telecommunications and postal service, the second one this year.
In accordance with the agreements reached at the last meeting, the parties gave an overview of the existing problems of cooperation between the postal services of the parties, S.E. Posta Moldovei and SUE Pochta Pridnestrovie. In spite of the fact that the main issues of cooperation between the postal services of the parties were settled by the contractual relations, since 2002 some agreements on a unilateral basis were not being extended by the Moldovan side. As a result, while such issues like reciprocal payments of the services in international postal mailing and acquiring postage stamps are still unresolved, the Pridnestrovian postal service suffers unwarranted financial losses. The Director of the SUE Pochta Pridnestrovie formally passed the drafts of the corresponding agreements to the representatives of the S.E. Posta Moldovei which had repeatedly been passed to the Moldovan colleagues previously in the course of work, but they had gone unanswered.
According to the agreements reached at the meeting, the postal services of Pridnestrovie and Moldova will have to develop and agree the proposals within a month which will form a basis for the corresponding bilateral agreements. These proposals will be submitted for consideration at the regular meeting of the expert (working) groups on telecommunications and postal service of Pridnestrovie and Moldova.
A particular attention was paid to the work of Pridnestrovian journalists in Moldova. We remind that this issue became a subject of discussion between the political representatives of Pridnestrovie and Moldova in connection with detentions of the PMR's media representatives in Moldova which had taken place.
According to the commitments made earlier, the Moldovan side had to inform about the accreditation procedure for the Pridnestrovian mass media in the Republic of Moldova at the given meeting. The detailed information about the accreditation allowing the Pridnestrovian journalists to work in Moldova was not provided by the Moldovan experts, but they said that all necessary information on the work of mass media in the RM, including foreign ones, was described in the Law on Mass Media of the Republic of Moldova. The Pridnestrovian side expressed its willingness to examine the provisions of the regulatory act for the purpose of implementing corresponding requirements in order to cover events in the Republic of Moldova.
